The Charlotte News
Wednesday, July 1, 1953
FIVE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that a sudden attack by as many as 2,000 Chinese Communist troops this date had overrun "Lookout Mountain", stopping South Korean troops on the east-central front who had driven the Chinese from that 1,600-foot position during the night and were mopping up pockets of the enemy when the counter-attack came at dawn. The height was strategic as it overlooked the road southward to the Kumsong River Valley, which had a vital network of roads. To the east, a battle raged for "Virginia Hill"—which presumably was close to "Bugsy Hill", even if out of town—, while localized fighting occurred on "Finger Ridge" and in the "Sniper Ridge" area. South Korean troops had pushed to the top of "Virginia Hill" before dawn, but were repulsed by about 1,000 enemy troops just before daybreak. On "Finger", the South Koreans had clawed to the crest in four hours of close-quarter fighting, but were driven back by Chinese reinforcements. At last report, South Korean troops were fighting back up the slopes. Other South Koreans had crushed a 300-man Chinese assault on "Outpost Victor" in the "Sniper Ridge" region.
In the air war, U.S. Sabre jets, a day after establishing the one-day record bag for the war, at 15 enemy MIG-15's shot down, found no enemy jets in the sunny skies this date.
Assistant Secretary of State Walter Robertson, emissary in Korea for the President, postponed this date his sixth meeting with President Syngman Rhee of South Korea, amid predictions by top officials in Washington that a showdown was soon coming, possibly within the ensuing 24 hours, regarding the stubborn refusal of President Rhee and the South Korean Government to accept a truce which would leave Korea divided. An authoritative source had indicated that concessions had been made in an effort to convince President Rhee to cooperate but that he had set forth new demands after first having declared that his demands had been met. High officials in Washington again stated that the allies would sign the armistice even if South Korea refused to cooperate. That source had indicated that Mr. Robertson had tentatively agreed to a joint U.S.-Korean walkout from a post-armistice peace conference if the Communists attempted to take advantage of that conference and win concessions not won on the battlefield, such as Communist infiltration into South Korea during the truce. U.N. supreme commander General Mark Clark called a secret conference of his top generals and admirals in Tokyo, not indicating why he had done so.
The President said this date at a press conference that it appeared that unrest was spreading like wildfire behind the Iron Curtain, demonstrating that people who had known freedom were willing to sacrifice their lives to regain it. He ruled out, however, any active support from the U.S. for revolts in the satellite countries. He called attention to speeches by West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer to the effect that the rumblings of discontent in the satellite nations disproved the Communist claims of a "workers' paradise" and showed the repressions of tyranny against the people. The President also said that the present negotiations with South Korean President Rhee were confused, but that Americans should not be too discouraged, that the differences with South Korea were real but that he continued to believe that a satisfactory conclusion of the war would be reached. He also indicated that he believed Secretary of State Dulles could put out a directive making it plain which books should be stocked in the overseas Information Services libraries maintained by the State Department, that the Secretary had pointed out to him that there were existing laws which stated that the books should be about American life and the American system of government. He said that someone had apparently become frightened in removing from the shelves the detective stories by Dashiell Hammett because the writer had been identified for a long time with leftist causes, and that he, personally, would not approve of such removal.
In East Berlin, high-ranking Soviet officers and civilians had been suddenly recalled to Moscow, presumably to report on the recent unrest among workers in East Germany. Virtually all of the former top aides of General Vassily Chuikov, who had run East Germany as head of the Soviet Control Commission and commander-in-chief of 300,000 troops, had been summoned to Moscow, as had the Soviet ambassadors in Washington, London and Paris. General Chuikov's political adviser, Vladimir Semyenov, had been appointed as the new High Commissioner of East Germany on May 28 and the General had been assigned to military duties inside Russia. East Germany was reported to be cutting in half the 125,000-man army which had failed to put down the recent revolt, appearing to be part of a program to free up money to placate the East Germans with more consumer goods. A West Berlin newspaper had reported that 60,000 of the Soviet-trained soldiers would be assigned to industrial jobs in mid-July. West German authorities said that Communist police armed with carbines had fired 15 times the previous night at two Germans riding bicycles along the street where the Soviet and U.S. sectors met, but that the bicyclists had not been injured, escaping into the ruins of a bombed-out building. Otherwise, the border situation was calm this date, with thousands of Germans crossing on foot during the morning hours, as the Soviets had eased but not lifted martial law in East Berlin, imposed in the wake of the worker riots.
The President, in a letter to Congressman Erret Scrivner of Kansas this date, read to the House, vowed to fight to restore the cuts to his proposed Air Force budget, cut by more than a billion dollars, with the overall defense budget having been cut by 1.3 billion dollars, six billion dollars less than that proposed by former President Truman in his final budget submitted to Congress the prior January. The President said that Congress could find room for cuts without impairing national security. Democrats were seeking to restore the Air Force cuts. Congressman Scrivner said that the difference between the President's budget and that of the House was the difference between the 120-wing Air Force and the 143-wing goal set three years earlier by the Joint Chiefs and the Truman Administration.
In Washington, the Senate held a memorial service this date for Senator Willis Smith of North Carolina, who had died on June 26 of a coronary thrombosis. The Senate convened two hours early to enable various Senators to pay tribute to their colleague, some of the quotes from whom are included. Minority Leader Lyndon Johnson described Senator Smith as "one of the ablest men of this body." Senator Clyde Hoey of North Carolina had said that he was always loyal "to the best he knew and he knew the best." Senator Smith had won the seat in a bitterly divisive primary runoff campaign with incumbent interim Senator Frank Porter Graham three years earlier, and had been in the Senate 2 1/2 years.
The President played golf this date at the Burning Tree Golf Course in Maryland.
In Guatemala City, rescue workers probed the wreckage of a hotel in an apartment building for additional victims this date, after at least 30 had been killed in a mystery dynamite explosion the previous day, with the death toll possibly to go as high as 50, with 31 others injured.
In Edgewood, Md., two North Carolina truckers had been killed early this date when their tractor-trailer struck a bridge abutment on U.S. 40 northeast of Baltimore, exploded and dropped 15 feet into the Bush River. The truck had been northbound with a load of watermelons when it swerved and hit a guard rail and then the abutment. State troopers who investigated the accident said that the driver had apparently fallen asleep at the wheel.
In Henderson, N.C., the body of an 18-year old girl, missing for three weeks, was found in an abandoned well the previous day and police had arrested two men for questioning in the death, after having been described as having been with the girl the night of her disappearance.
In Raleigh, Governor William B. Umstead said this date that he had been advised by State Attorney General Harry McMullen that the 15 members of the Board of Conservation & Development whose terms were supposed to expire the previous midnight might continue for an indefinite period. The 1953 General Assembly had passed a law which had said the terms would expire at the end of June and that the Governor would appoint 15 members anew on July 1. The Attorney General had advised the Governor that the law was directory only and not mandatory and that therefore the old Board could remain in office until a new Board was appointed.
The six special Superior Court judges and one emergency judge appointed by the Governor on Monday took their oaths of office in Raleigh this date from Chief Justice W. A. Devin of the State Supreme Court. The special judges, appointed for two-year terms, included future State Supreme Court Justice Susie Sharp of Reidsville, the first woman to be appointed to the position, eventually to become Chief, reappointed after having served one term already.
Dick Young of The News reports of a recommendation made in a letter to the City Council by the Civil Service Commission of Charlotte that a special committee first conduct a study of the police department, rather than initially by the Commission, to ensure impartiality, and that if the Council, after such a report, still believed that the Commission ought conduct an investigation, it would.
In Elgin, Ill., a man went to bed but remained awake because of a radio playing music and long commercials, finally, in the early hours of the morning reporting it to police, who responded to the neighborhood but heard nothing other than early birds chirping and so left, only to have the man report the noise again to the police an hour later, whereupon the police drove to the man's home and talked to him at his bedroom window, the officers still hearing nothing, and so the man donned his trousers and slippers, saying that he would help them find the radio, at which point, reaching down for his slippers, he heard the music appear to get louder, looked underneath his bed, finding a portable radio which his two children had put there.
What was playing?
On the editorial page, "Heartening Support in Foreign Affairs" indicates that Senator Lyndon Johnson's plea the previous day for foreign policy unity had a familiar and welcome ring, from the days of the late Senator Arthur Vandenberg of Michigan during and after the war. Senators Vandenberg, Tom Connally of Texas, Warren Austin of Vermont and Robert Wagner of New York had all sought to provide a unified foreign policy for the U.S. during those earlier times. Present Secretary of State Dulles had served both the Roosevelt and Truman Administrations effectively, the latter as a member of the U.N. delegation.
Minority Leader Johnson was speaking specifically in response to an attack on the Administration-sponsored 5.3 billion dollar foreign aid bill, indicating that the less partisanship displayed, the better it would be for the country at such a critical time. He promised that the Democrats would offer no "crippling" amendments to the bill and that he would co-sponsor, along with Senator Taft, a bipartisan amendment to the bill which would leave it to the discretion of the President to withhold funds from the six European nations who were delaying in ratification of the European Defense Community unified army, thus far, only West Germany having done so, whereas the House version of the bill had automatically withheld the funds until the delayed ratification was complete.
The President, Secretary Dulles, and Senator Alexander Wiley, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, had been under fire from fellow Republicans who were nationalists and isolationists for their foreign policy approach. At the same time, the Administration was trying to complete the truce in Korea against resistance from South Korean President Rhee, while rioting and rebellion in East Germany and other Russian satellites was occurring and there was need to try to exploit it. Thus, there was great value in Senator Johnson's plea for unity on foreign policy and, it indicates, he and fellow Democrats in the Senate deserved from the American people thanks for their attitude.
"No Case Whatsoever against Douglas" comments on the resolution which had been introduced by Representative William Wheeler of Georgia to impeach Justice William O. Douglas for issuing on June 17 the stay of the executions of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, originally scheduled for June 18, premised on the new argument, not previously heard by the courts, made by "next friend" counsel of the Rosenbergs, that the 1946 Atomic Energy Act penalty provisions had superseded those of the 1917 Espionage Act, under which the Rosenbergs had been convicted and sentenced to death. The full Court heard the Government's motion to set aside the stay on June 19, and voted to vacate it at noon that date, clearing the way for the executions of the Rosenbergs that night.
Mr. Wheeler had now acknowledged that some of his charges had been erroneous and based on hearsay. The House Judiciary Committee had heard the charges the previous day and concluded that the charges were without substance. One of those charges had even mentioned that Justice Douglas was involved in a divorce case, "dastardly as well as unfounded".
It suggests that perhaps Georgians ought be provided special leniency when railing against the Supreme Court, as it had been a Georgia case which had caused President Andrew Jackson to observe: "John Marshall has made his decision—now let him enforce it," regarding a case in which the Supreme Court had reversed a murder conviction against a rebellious half-breed named Corn Tassel, who was hanged in Georgia notwithstanding the Court's reversal.
Parenthetically, the piece has the facts a little confused on the matter, as Mr. Tassel, a resident of the Cherokee nation, had been convicted and hung after a trial in a Georgia court in late 1830 for a crime committed in tribal territory, the hanging having occurred after Chief Justice Marshall had issued a writ of error against the judgment, prohibiting the execution until a hearing could be held before the full Supreme Court to determine whether Georgia had proper jurisdiction over the defendant, the Georgia Legislature then determining unilaterally, as explained in Cherokee Nation v. State of Georgia, that the Supreme Court had no jurisdiction to prevent Georgia from carrying out the execution and so ordered the hanging anyway. Afterward, in Cherokee Nation, the Court, in an opinion delivered by the Chief Justice, denied a motion for an injunction to prevent the State of Georgia from exercising jurisdiction over the Cherokee and seizing lands promised the Cherokee by treaty, with Justices Smith Thompson and Joseph Story dissenting. The case held that the plaintiffs were not a foreign state within the meaning of the Constitution such that a case or controversy arising against one of the United States could invoke the jurisdiction of the Federal courts. It also held that the Court might decide the question of the rights of Georgia to interpose its authority over the Cherokee in a proper case with proper parties, but could not so decide the issue in that case as it requested more than determining proper title to the tribal lands but rather also sought that the Court exert control over the Georgia Legislature, which was a question too political in nature for the judicial branch to decide, deferring to Congress.
Subsequently, in another case, a citizen of Vermont challenged the laws under which he was sentenced to four years of hard labor by a Georgia court, which he claimed was operating under unconstitutional laws in contravention of the treaty with the Cherokee, that the crime of which he was accused was committed, if at all, within the Cherokee nation where he was a resident, and not in the State of Georgia, and thus the Georgia courts were without jurisdiction to try the case, with which the Supreme Court agreed in Worcester v. Georgia in 1832.
By the way, a seriously flawed Wicked-pedia article on the subject indicates that Mr. Tassel was "murdered" by the State of Georgia, an outrageous statement to make, and quite erroneous, as the State was acting under ostensible, even if erroneous, color of law in its trial and conviction for murder and execution of Mr. Tassel, the issue being one of proper jurisdiction, but still not amounting to "murder" when basic due process was followed, rendering the Wicked-pedia contributor's statement of "murder" only a bit of contemporary, uninformed editorialization on an event which took place in 1830 when most people in Georgia and elsewhere in the country could not read or write, and has no business in any reputable "encyclopedia", which, of course, Wicked-pedia is not, often compiled, as it is, by petulant, self-centered five-year olds or at least those with an equivalent understanding of history in its proper context.
The piece continues that impeachment proceedings were brought
in 1803 against Justice Samuel Chase at the behest of President
Jefferson, who had gotten a Congressman to begin the proceedings
after Justice Chase had denounced some of the President's pet
programs and said that his regime would drive the country into a
"mobocracy". In that case
It was not so, however, despite all the verbal gymnastics of the Trumpies so suggesting, in the case of Trumpy-Dumpy-Do in 2019-2020. But, there is no sense in beating a dead horse who is being put out to pasture.
The juxtaposition, incidentally, of the two preceding pieces is coincidentally intersecting of an anecdote related from these times by Justice Douglas after the controversy surrounding the issuance of the Rosenberg stay, as related by the Justice in his final volume of his autobiography, The Court Years, to which we linked earlier, stating that he had been ostracized from Washington social life, prompting him to take to hiking alone along the Appalachian Trail, and that while on a train to New York one day, had encountered Senator Lyndon Johnson, with whom he had always been a friend, and thus hailed him with a hearty greeting, which Senator Johnson ignored and moved on as if he did not see Justice Douglas, a sting, he indicated, which hurt the most, though he continued to count the Senator as a friend until the latter's death in 1973. Senator Johnson had first come to Washington as a Congressman in 1937, two years prior to FDR appointing Mr. Douglas from his position as chairman of the SEC to the Court. ("SEC" does not stand for the Southeastern Conference, by the way.)
"On Basketball and the Coliseum" believes that Charlotte, once it constructed its new 10,000-seat coliseum about two years hence, ought be given consideration for the site of future Southern Conference basketball tournaments, and urges the commission which was planning the coliseum-auditorium complex to begin to give thought to lining up events, including basketball games for the 1955-56 season. It urges that Duke, UNC, N.C. State and Wake Forest ought be persuaded to play at least one of their major games each season in Charlotte, and that Davidson could also be counted to play some of its major opponents there. Belmont Abbey, which was just beginning big-time basketball—and would obtain the head-coaching talents of a young Al McGuire in 1957, who would eventually, in 1977, just as he retired from coaching at age 48, win the national championship with Marquette against a hobbled UNC—could also be induced to play there.
It indicates that since collegiate schedules were arranged sometimes years in advance, the commission ought to begin right away working with sportswriters, alumni clubs and other interested groups and individuals to lay the groundwork for an assortment of sports activities for the coliseum, as frequent bookings would help it pay for itself and satisfy the need of the community for better recreation.
We think an annual two-night doubleheader with UNC, the University of South Carolina, Clemson, and N.C. State would be a good idea. And then there is that new Atlantic Coast Conference, set to begin its first football season in the fall, which also will have a new basketball tournament, though set to be played on the N.C. State campus for time indefinite, but seemingly wholly unfair and partial to the Wolfpack, and so... They will like playing under the new, modern dome.
"A Question" indicates that having read Arthur Krock's piece in the Sunday New York Times, it had been reminded of a question which had been bothering the editorial writer for a long time, Mr. Krock having recalled that Secretary of State Acheson, in an early 1950 speech in which he had described the security perimeter for the West, had excluded Korea therefrom, a fact which critics of the former Secretary had raised after the invasion by the North Koreans of South Korea on June 25, 1950, charging that the Secretary had effectively "tipped off" the enemy to U.S. intentions in foreign policy, a matter which Mr. Krock described as a "classic diplomatic error of informing the enemy the details of the policy."
The short piece wonders whether if the State Department had been rife with as many Soviet agents as the critics of Mr. Acheson claimed, the Soviets would not have known about that policy anyway absent his speech.
"Current History, a la McCarthy" indicates that a new twist had been added to the approach of Senator Joseph McCarthy, making flagrant accusations designed to obtain attention from the press and public in an effort to make them forget the unfounded nature of previous such charges.
Murray Marder of the Washington Post had reported that Donald Creed had appeared before the Government Operations Committee, chaired by Senator McCarthy, reporting of a gross waste in the Voice of America budget, that a broadcasting unit ordered by the Voice had caused $85,000 to build, then required a $30,000 to $35,000 adjustment to make it work, a story which had captured headlines and caused members of the public to doubt the wisdom of the Voice. Mr. Marder, however, had obtained the original official record of Mr. Creed's testimony and discovered that the figures had been changed from that to which Mr. Creed had testified, that the equipment had actually originally cost $41,000 and the adjustment, only $590.
But the Committee and Senator McCarthy never sent out corrective statements to the newspapers which had carried the sensational reports, but instead simply rewrote the record in an attempt to protect itself from further checking.
A piece from theCarolina Israelite, presumably by its editor Harry Golden, titled "DAR Is Getting Harder To Join", indicates that the DAR had announced that in the old days they had accepted evidence of ancestry which would not currently be acceptable for membership, that they now needed proof. The piece indicates that it related to 1776, practically "yesterday afternoon", as the editorial writer indicates that he belonged to the "S.O.B's", the "Sons of Babel", as his ancestors had helped to build the Tower. "And even at that, there are some folks I know who go back further, and look at us S.O.B.'s as upstarts."
Drew Pearson discusses the abortive appointment of Tom Lyon, formally of Anaconda Copper, as the new director of the Bureau of Mines, withdrawn at the sole direction of Presidential assistant Sherman Adams, after Senator Arthur Watkins of Utah, chairman of a Senate subcommittee on immigration, had complained to the White House that Mr. Lyons was not in sympathy with the Federal Mine Safety Act and was receiving a $5,000 revocable pension from Anaconda, having told a Senate committee that "life has become very cheap around the globe." Senator Watkins was frustrated at not being able to talk personally to the President after Mr. Adams said that he was out golfing. Mr. Adams undertook the withdrawal of the appointment without consulting with the President. Around the same time, Secretary of Interior Douglas McKay had sought to reach the President, and had also been able to reach only "Assistant President" Adams, who had not told the Secretary that the President was out golfing, causing the Secretary to be peeved at being unable to speak directly with the President. Senator Watkins, meanwhile, grumbled to friends about the President's constant golfing.
Former President Truman, during his recent automobile trip through Maryland to Washington from his home in Independence, Missouri, had stopped in a Greek restaurant in Frostburg for lunch, and was approached by some nice people seeking his autograph and wishing to say hello, one of whom, a young boy, had asked the former President to drive two miles to his home to greet his aging mother who was bedridden, that it would cheer her up. Mr. Truman had recounted the incident to Mr. Pearson, saying that he could hardly resist such an humble request, as he had so much affection for his own deceased mother, and had so accommodated the boy. In greeting the boy's mother, she had said to him, "Mr. Truman, you're better looking than I thought you were." He said that the detour of two miles had been the best part of the entire trip. Mr. Pearson notes that the only thing Mr. Truman had left out was the first name of the boy, though he had recalled the last name, and the fact that the boy's mother had whispered a prayer, "May God bless you, Mr. President."
Secretary McKay had suppressed a 91-page engineering report which disputed his recent decision to turn over the public power project at Hell's Canyon to the Idaho Power Co., the report, prepared by an internationally known consulting hydroelectric engineer, having concluded that the project's multi-purpose scheme was superior to the schemes proposed by the company. Yet, the efforts of Congresswoman Gracie Pfost of Idaho and Senator Warren Magnuson of Washington to force the report into the open had failed, as the Secretary was keeping it under wraps.
Marquis Childs indicates that the frailties in the alliance between Britain and the U.S. had become especially evident by the postponement of the Big Three Bermuda conference for an additional month, to provide Prime Minister Churchill, 78, a chance to rest from the duties of Government, as ordered by his doctors. Mr. Churchill had been carrying the responsibilities of both Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary since Anthony Eden had undergone a second operation and was seeking to recover his own health.
Policymakers in Washington at the White House and the State Department had found that Mr. Churchill had been quite difficult in trying to establish an agenda for the Bermuda conference, which he believed should be a first step toward a later conference of the Big Four, including Russia. But the Administration disfavored inclusion of the Soviets, believing that it was not the right time for such an expanded conference. There was some discussion in Washington that Mr. Churchill might, if his suggestion of a Big Four conference were not approved, go unilaterally to Moscow for a bilateral meeting with Premier Georgi Malenkov. But Mr. Churchill would have rejected such a suggestion, observes Mr. Childs, for it did not fit with his cherished desire of his latter years, peace in the world under his leadership to refute any suggestion in the history books that he was a warmonger. It was, comments Mr. Childs, a noble dream based on the idea of the past, that four or five men could agree around the conference table on the terms by which governments and peoples would be bound in a revolutionary age. But after the disappointments of the Yalta and Potsdam conferences of 1945, few Americans any longer so believed.
The President had earlier said in April that he was willing to meet with the Soviets, after they showed tangible evidence of acts in concord with their statements desirous of peace. Because the views of the President and Prime Minister Churchill were so at odds, it was feared that the Bermuda conference would just be talk of a highly general and fairly meaningless nature.
The U.S. wanted to discuss the British-Egyptian problem over the Suez Canal Zone, as Secretary of State Dulles, during his recent visit to Egypt, had found Premier Mohammed Naguib amenable to a solution regarding the impasse, but it was questionable whether Prime Minister Churchill would wish to discuss the question at Bermuda. The State Department believed that the time was ripe for discussion and solution within the ensuing few weeks rather than waiting months. Mr. Childs indicates that again it was bad luck that Foreign Minister Eden was not available, as he had previously reached an agreement with Egypt regarding the Sudan, a move which had provoked a great amount of criticism within the Conservative Party and among some in Labor, as they believed it was giving away the Empire and diminsihing Britain's greatness.
Robert C. Ruark indicates that he had gotten a laugh from a story that Republicans had been advertising for bartenders able to withstand a security check, to become employed by an exclusive political drinking club in Washington, until he began considering that Congressmen were quite garrulous and bartenders were great listeners, in an atmosphere where drinking could loosen the tongue. He indicates that it was quite shocking, sometimes, to hear things around the Washington bars from military brass and security-minded executives, that the Russians had never needed spies in postwar Washington, just as the Germans had never needed them during the war. "All the stuff was there, and handy to a decent Martini-mixer with a large, lop ear."
He recounts that one book had credited a bartender and a saloon owner in Tangier in Morocco with getting over 35,000 Allied sympathizers, including U.S. aviators who had been shot down, out of Tangier, by being good listeners and gatherers of information at the saloon.
He indicates that if anyone ever told him to collect the intimate knowledge of the world, he would set up an intelligent force of smart people and teach them how to make Tom Collinses and Manhattans, then sit back and listen politely, laugh and nod at the right times. He would employ a staff of barkeeps, butlers, waiters and chauffeurs for the purpose, as no one believed that a servant had ears.
A letter writer from Statesville provides a quote from a letter which the writer had received from the late Senator Willis Smith, who had just died the previous week of a coronary thrombosis. In the letter, the Senator had said that he expected to continue to do what he thought was best for the state and the South in all matters coming before the Senate in which he had a vote and that he did not expect to try to say or do anything which would be of personal benefit to himself. The writer finds the quote to have shown the motivating force behind the Senator which had made him a great statesman, finds him to have been a "fine Christian gentleman and distinguished North Carolina citizen", and a valued long-time friend. He hopes that his successor would be of equal caliber and convictions.
A letter writer wonders whether, when Baptist ministers spoke at state-supported schools for commencement exercises, it was in furtherance of the principle of separation of church and state, that principle on which the 26 Baptist ministers had objected to the continuation of the teaching of the Bible in the Charlotte public schools. He wonders whether the local Armory-Auditorium, which was rented for any secular or commercial purpose, was maintaining the principle when it was rented by Baptists or other religious groups for religious purposes. Chaplains and chapels were incorporated into the military and people of all religions owned property on which the former owner had paid taxes, causing him to wonder if such also was a violation of the principle. He indicates that the First Amendment Establishment Clause was designed to prohibit a state church such as the Church of England. Thomas Jefferson, as the founder of the University of Virginia, had proposed that the State build a building on the campus for religious sects of Virginia to teach religion and theology. "Consistency, oh, what a jewel thou art. If the Baptists' proposal is carried to its inescapable, logical conclusion, it just doesn't make sense—does it!"
Yes it does, except to those who do not think very clearly and thoroughly through the details, where the devil inevitably always is.
A letter writer thinks that the Baptist ministers who had objected to the Bible study program in the schools would not find support from the majority of the membership of their churches. He says that it was not meant as a criticism of the 26 ministers who had signed the petition, for they had a right to express their beliefs. He believes that the ministers were on solid ground in opposing infringement of the principle of separation of church and state, but that the question was the amount of violation of the principle in teaching the Bible in the public schools, whereas they had been correct in opposing a grant of public funds to be used to build a new wing of the Baptist Hospital in Winston-Salem. He believes that the Baptists had also been correct in opposing the appointment by President Truman of General Mark Clark as an envoy to the Vatican. He asserts that if public funds were used to pay the salary of the Bible teachers in the schools, then it would violate the principle. But as such was not the case, the question of public funding was not in issue. He thinks it impossible to have complete separation of church and state, as, for instance, in the case of the church being willing to accept police and fire protection services. He thinks the line is crossed only when public funding is involved directly to support such instruction.
Again, the issue resolves along the lines of teaching a specific religion in a public school where attendance is mandatory and not just about religion generally. It only becomes complicated when advocates for an established state religion start trying to muddy the waters with inapposite examples from other contexts, not properly distinguished in their minds. Just as the Supreme Court had distinguished Catholic parochial schoolchildren receiving State-funded bus rides to and from school as an essential public service and thus not violative of the principle of separation, so, too, were the examples mentioned by the writers as supposedly being apparent violations of the principle, in stark contrast to teaching the Protestant Christian religion on public school grounds, though allowable, according to the high Court, when conducted off school grounds and without compulsory attendance, even though accomplished during school hours. Rather than stubbornly persisting in defending a program clearly violating the principle, why not establish a program compliant with Supreme Court decisions? unless the real purpose was one of rebellion against the Gov'ment.
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